Cards of Love: The Hermit

by Cora Brent

  “I didn’t expect to see you here.” There was something wrong with his voice. It was hoarse and it sounded as if the words emerged after a struggle.

  “I got your letter,” I said. “How did you know where I was?”

  The shock was starting to leave his face. “I’ve always kept an eye out for you.”

  “You mean an eye on me.”

  He sighed. “Will you come in?”

  The smell of sickness was in the house; a vague medicinal odor combined with cleaning agents. I recognized it from my childhood, when my mother would spend months barely able to emerge from her room as a stream of caregivers hired by my grandfather came and went.

  “Is this your house?” I asked, puzzled by the abundant fake flower arrangements and quilted wall hangings.

  “I live here with my wife, Dana,” my uncle said. He wore a fuzzy light blue bathrobe and wheezed as he made his way over to the couch. A portable oxygen tank was parked beside the couch and he took a few breaths from the mask.

  “Your wife?” I asked. He hadn’t mentioned anything about being married in the letter but now I saw the framed photo on the side table. Uncle Greg as he’d been maybe a few years ago, smiling and in better shape, beside a blonde woman whose smile rivaled Betty Grable’s. She looked like a nice person, not that you could tell such things from photographs.

  My uncle wheezed again and settled back on the couch. “She would have wanted to stick around if she’d known you were coming. But I made her get out of the house today, go shopping with her girlfriends. She shouldn’t have to sit here every day watching me struggle to breathe.”

  I took a seat on an expensive leather armchair. “In your letter you said you had cancer.”

  “Lung cancer.” He coughed and winced, thumping his frail chest. “All those fucking cigars and cigarettes.”

  Maybe I should have told him I was sorry to hear that. But I wasn’t sure that was the case.

  “And the rest of them are really dead?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Just like I told you in the letter. Cliff got on someone’s bad side one too many times. He was shot outside a bar in Albany four years ago. And Robert drunkenly drove into a light pole six months later. That was about all the old man could take. He’d already suffered two strokes and he suffered the third a week after Robert’s death. He hung on for a few months but he knew all the while he was facing the end. The family business interests had largely evaporated so I cashed out what I could and moved out here to the sunshine.” Greg gasped for breath by the time he was finished talking. He clutched his chest, making a face of hideous pain and I stood up, intending to hand him the oxygen tank but he waved me off and his painful expression relaxed.

  “What was I saying?” he asked.

  “You were talking about the end.”

  He nodded and a ghost of a smile flickered across his face but there was no humor in it. “Yeah. Something we all face. Sooner or later.”

  From where I sat it looked to be a pretty sure thing that Greg was facing that fate sooner rather than later and despite everything I felt a twinge of sympathy for him. Watching such suffering was painful no matter what he’d done.

  “Was it you?” I asked my uncle, the man who’d never had much patience for children but still managed to be kind to me in his way.

  He knew what I was talking about. “No, it wasn’t me.”

  “But it was done on your father’s command?”

  Greg shook his head. “No. He had nothing to do with the boy’s death.”

  “Alex!” My teeth clenched. “You know damn well his name was Alex.”

  Greg held up a placating hand. “Alex. Your grandfather didn’t plan your boyfriend’s death, Deirdre.”

  I swallowed, ready to ask the question that I’d waited a decade to hear the answer to.

  “What happened out there? You wouldn’t tell me. You wouldn’t even look at me. None of you would!” I choked the words out while struggling not to cry.

  Greg seemed to age even more right in front of me. His clouded blue eyes became distant as he stared out the window into the Pasadena sunshine. “We’d had a good day. We shot a couple of birds. Then Cliff and Robert got to drinking Cliff said something about Galina. The kid, Alex, he got angry and the two of them scuffled a bit.”

  “And Cliff shot him?”

  Greg shook his head. “No. I broke them up and everything was fine. Alex knew what Cliff was like. Everybody did. He seemed to get past it. It was getting late in the morning. I returned to the campsite to get lunch going, leaving Alex and the boys on the edge of a clearing. They were going to make one more sweep and circle back to camp. When I heard the shot I didn’t think anything of it until Robert came running back, all red-faced and screaming at me to get the truck.”

  Greg was gasping again so I had to wait until he caught his breath before he could continue.

  “They were trying to climb through an old fence. Alex got himself stuck in the barbed wire. He didn’t know guns too well, must have had his finger on the trigger and it went off.”

  “That sounds like bullshit and you know it.”

  Greg wilted on the couch. He having a harder and harder time speaking. “Robert said he didn’t see it happen. And Cliff was in a panic. He was actually crying.” Greg gave me a beseeching look. “I know what kind of men my brothers were. But whatever their faults they wouldn’t have murdered a teenage boy in cold blood just because he annoyed them.”

  “Unless Richard Kilmartin ordered them to.”

  “His idea was to bring the boy into the business. You might have guessed that our family’s enterprises weren’t always on the right side of the law. Once that happened Alex would be involved in things it wouldn’t be so easy to walk away from. But Deirdre, I promise you that your grandfather did not order your uncles to kill your boyfriend.”

  A tear fell down my cheek. I angrily wiped it away. “But he didn’t mind that Alex was dead, did he?”

  “No, I suppose he didn’t. But he minded losing you very much.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “It’s true. At first he thought you’d cool off after a year or two. We all thought that.”

  “Cool off? It wasn’t some teenage temper tantrum for god’s sake!”

  He grimaced and shifted slightly on the couch. “I didn’t mean it that way. I know you were heartbroken. Cliff and Robert were nervous about the way you kept trying to convince the police that Alex had been killed. We all kind of breathed a sigh of relief the day you left town. If we’d known you’d never come back we wouldn’t have felt the same way. The old man was too stubborn to reach out to you directly so he just kept tabs. For your twenty first birthday he asked me to send you your mother’s ring.” He pointed to the sapphire on my right hand. “You still wear it.”

  I touched the ring. “Not because it came from you.”

  “I understand. Somewhere around the time you graduated from college and changed your name he realized you’d never come back. He still went out of his way to make arrangements for you though.”

  I had no idea what he could be referring to. I’d been completely on my own for many years. “What kind of arrangements?”

  “Scholarship funds while you were getting your masters. He had enough lawyers in his phone book to figure out who to contact, and how to work it so you wouldn’t find out. He knew if you were aware of where the money came from you wouldn’t take it.”

  “Scholarship funds?” I echoed, remembering a few things. Applications for scholarships that seemed tailor made for me would arrive in my inbox. Grant money that came my way though it was elusive to most of my colleagues…

  “And did you by any chance pick up the reins for funding my professional endeavors when he died?”

  He averted his eyes. “It was the only way to get you the inheritance you deserved. Your grandfather knew you wouldn’t accept any money he left you directly.”

  I examined my hands, twisting around my mother’s ring. My yearlon
g grant to research to my heart’s content in the Superstitions. It seemed too good to be true. It was.

  “Then why write to me now?” I asked.

  “Because I’m dying,” he said simply. “And because we’re all that’s left of the Kilmartins.” He raised an eyebrow. “And you’re still a Kilmartin, Deirdre, no matter how many times you change your name.”

  Another tear fell. I couldn’t seem to keep them inside. “I loved him. I loved Alex more than I can tell you.”

  His face softened. “I know. And no matter what I say it’ll never fix what happened to him. And to you.”

  “What about Galina?”

  “We provided for her. Your grandfather cared about Galina, though he hated her husband.”

  “Cared about her?” I remembered the way Galina’s fingers shook as she buttoned her blouse after she left his study. “You mean he used her and then paid her off to make her go away.”

  Greg looked uncomfortable. “Your grandfather was a hard man. I can’t make excuses for him. But to my knowledge she was never mistreated. And when she wished to return to Russia he made sure she had enough money to keep her comfortable for the rest of her life so she wouldn’t have to be anyone’s maid ever again.”

  My fingers kept twisting the ring that had belonged to my mother. Greg noticed and grew sadder.

  “She was his favorite child you know,” he said with a rueful smile. “And after we lost you he could never shake the feeling that he’d failed her. Toward the end he used to make his caregiver to visit your mother’s grave every day and it was really pitiful, the way he would cry and beg her to forgive him for failing you.”

  For so long I’d carried so much bitterness toward my grandfather. I still didn’t know if I believed Greg’s version of events. I didn’t know who was guilty or innocent or if Alex’s death was really and truly an accident. I’d never know. At some point I’d have to accept that.

  I stood up. “I really should be going. I’ve got a long drive back to Arizona.”

  My uncle looked miserable. “I wish you’d consider staying for a few days. Dana would love to meet you and lord knows we’ve got extra bedrooms.”

  I didn’t give it a second thought. “I can’t.”

  “If you ever need anything,” he said. “Money, or whatever…”

  “I won’t.” I took a step toward the door and paused. “Thank you for the grant. I’ll finish up my work and write the book but I do not want anything else. Ever.”

  He was disappointed. “Are you sure?”

  “If you really want to spend money on something, you can set up a scholarship in Alex’s name. He’d like that.”

  Greg Kilmartin’s head was lowered and when he raised it again I saw the mortal reality in his face. He wouldn’t be around much longer.

  “Deirdre,” he said. “I don’t know if it makes any difference but I wanted to tell you something. I’m proud to be your uncle. And your mother would be so very proud of you.”

  It did mean something. In spite of all the years and heartache it meant something to hear those words. I opened the door.

  “Goodbye, Uncle Greg.”

  He smiled. “Goodbye, Deirdre.”

  I drove around the block, parked the car and cried for a while.

  “Alexander,” I whispered his name as I sobbed, picturing the kind boy with the laughing eyes who’d been my friend, my lover, my everything. He’d died far too young and nothing about that would ever be fair. Yet I knew his generous heart would never have wanted me to grieve forever instead of living.

  I’d been immersed in the past for far too long. My very livelihood was devoted to the examination of events long over and people long dead. I’d left my comfortable academic life and come west in search of stories that hadn’t yet been told. But perhaps the best story I had to tell was the one I knew most intimately. My story, Alex’s story. And now it was Jeremy’s story too. When I thought about what I wanted now I thought about Jeremy. He had his own demons to wrestle with and I wanted to be by his side the whole way. I didn’t yet know how our next chapters were destined to play out. All I knew is that I wanted him. I hoped he wanted me in the same way.

  I was not Deirdre of the Sorrows. She wasn’t even real. And my ending did not have to be an unhappy one.

  I dried my tears and started the engine. It was time to return to Jeremy and find out what happens next.

  It was time to go home.

  Chapter Fourteen

  JEREMY

  I was scrubbing my floor for about the fifth time today. My new friend was taking another nap in his little box because apparently crapping and eating and chewing and crapping again was exhausting. I wasn’t complaining though. I was actually having fun although the whole time I kept an ear out for any sign of Deirdre.

  It was getting close to evening and I made a deal with myself that if another hour went by without any sign of her then I’d drive to Prickly Flats to find out if Betty had heard anything.

  Then I remembered I actually had a phone now and I could just freaking call Betty. The store would still be open. I knew they had a phone there. Finding the number probably wasn’t difficult. It was a strange feeling typing information into an internet search bar. My fingers kept fumbling over the letters. But I didn’t need to finish typing. I could hear the sound of tires crunching over the gravel outside and I recognized the sound of Deirdre’s car engine.

  I pocketed my phone and practically sprinted outside.

  She was already emerging from the driver’s side.

  “Hi,” she said, a little bashfully as she shut the car door. “I took a short road trip to California and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you but-“

  I cut off her words by seizing her sweet face between my hands and kissing her. Once she got over her surprise her arms went around me and I moved my hands from her face to hungrily explore the curves of her body while we kissed on and on like two desperate teenagers. I wanted to push her panties down and take her right there but I was trying to be romantic so instead I just kept kissing her until we were both out of breath.

  “I take this to mean you missed me?” she asked, smiling up at me.

  I kissed her neck. “I missed you.”

  She pressed closer. “I can feel it.”

  I took her hand. “Come sit down.”

  There was only one seat, the old wooden rocking chair where I’d sit at twilight and watch the sun set. Lately it was also the place where I’d sit as I waited for Deirdre to finish working for the day and come find me.

  She liked it when I settled her on my lap and rested my hand possessively on her thigh. My dick hadn’t calmed down yet but there’d be time for that later. Right now we had a few things to sort out.

  Deirdre was inspecting me. “I think your beard grew since yesterday.”

  “Want me to shave it off?”

  “No.” She touched my face. “You’re perfect just like this.”

  I took her hand and kissed it. “Why’d you go to California?”

  She sighed and looked away, toward the jagged peaks of the Superstitions. “I went to go see my uncle.”

  “Your uncle?” From what Deirdre had told me about her uncles they didn’t sound like people you’d want to socialize with.

  “Yes. He sent me a letter because he’s dying. I never thought I’d want to speak to him again. But I realized I’d never be able to really embrace a future worth having unless I dealt with the past first.”

  “And did you?”

  She turned her head back to me and leaned in, touching her forehead to mine. Her breath smelled sweet, like cinnamon candy. “I’ll tell you all about it. I promise.”

  Her hair was in its classic ponytail. I tugged the band until it fell out.

  “I really did miss you,” I told her.

  She smiled. “I missed you too. I started watching a show on the Home and Garden Network and the host reminded me of you.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes. I may have be
en tempted to indulge in a masturbatory exercise because of it.”

  “I don’t think I understand unless you reenact it for me.”

  She giggled. “The temptation passed.”

  “How come?”

  “He wasn’t good enough. There’s only one Jeremy Gannon.” She traced the outline of my chest muscles with her finger. “What did you do while I was gone?”

  I told her about the Carters, mostly in case she still had any worries that Buster and his leering idiocy would show up to make trouble. And also because I wanted to get that subject out of the way before I moved on to better topics.

  “Guess what I have now?” I asked her.

  “A boner?”

  “Well, yeah. But that’s not what I meant.” I reached into my back pocket and held up the object I found.

  Her mouth dropped. “Is that a phone?”

  “I think so. The sales guy promised me it was.”

  “You got a phone! But why?”

  “Because I spent five years being a fucking lonely idiot and I finally got tired of it.” I pushed her long hair over her shoulder. “And because I couldn’t handle it when all I wanted was to talk to my girl and I couldn’t.”

  She wasn’t expecting to hear that. I could tell by the way she sucked in her lip and didn’t respond right away. So I took the initiative and tipped her chin up so I could look into her eyes.

  “Did you mean what you told me yesterday?” I said.

  She knew what I meant. She nodded. “I meant it.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. Because I think I could love you too, Deirdre.”

  “Jeremy.” She was a little tearful now, tearful in a good way. She was happy. “You are full of surprises. Any others I should know about?”

  The sharp sound of a high pitched bark came from inside the house.

  “One more.” I moved Deirdre off my lap and disappeared into the house for a second.

  “Ohhh!” she exclaimed when I emerged with the tiny creature.

  The puppy was awake and alert now, whimpering a little and thumping his tail against my chest.